Democracy, Political Equality, and Majority Rule
Source: Ethics, Vol. 121, No. 1 (October 2010), pp. 148-177
Published by: The University of Chicago Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/656474
Accessed: 04-04-2018 15:35 UTC
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide
range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and
facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at
http://about.jstor.org/terms
The University of Chicago Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and
extend access to Ethics
This content downloaded from 147.251.160.163 on Wed, 04 Apr 2018 15:35:07 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
Ethics 121 (October 2010): 148–177
᭧ 2010 by The University of Chicago. All rights reserved. 0014-1704/2010/12101-0005$10.00
148
Democracy, Political Equality,
and Majority Rule*
Ben Saunders
Democracy is commonly associated with political equality and/or majority
rule. This essay shows that these three ideas are conceptually separate, so the
transition from any one to another stands in need of further substantive argument,
which is not always adequately given. It does this by offering an alternative
decision-making mechanism, called lottery voting, in which all individuals
cast votes for their preferred options but, instead of these being
counted, one is randomly selected and that vote determines the outcome.
This procedure is democratic and egalitarian, since all have an equal chance
to influence outcomes, but obviously not majoritarian.
Democracy is commonly associated with political equality and/or majority
rule. This essay shows that these three ideas are conceptually
separate, so the transition from any one to another stands in need of
further substantive argument, which is not always adequately given. It
does this by offering an alternative decision-making mechanism,
called lottery voting, in which all individuals cast votes for their preferred
options but, instead of these being counted, one is randomly
* This article is based on my DPhil thesis, “Democracy-as-Fairness: Justice, Equal
Chances and Lotteries” (University of Oxford, 2008). While writing it I incurred many
debts, most notably to my supervisor, David Miller, and the Arts and Humanities Research
Council, who funded the majority of my studies. Work in progress was presented at various
venues (Oxford, Warwick, and Manchester), and something like this article to the Oxford
Moral Philosophy seminar (June 2008), Cerberus, the Balliol College Oxford PPE Society
(November 2008), the Corpus Christi College Oxford Philosophy Society (March 2009),
and to audiences at the University of Manchester (July 2009) and University of York
(August 2009). I would like to thank those audiences and, in particular, Gustaf Arrhenius,
Adrian Blau, Conall Boyle, Daniel Butt, Krister Bykvist, Matthew Clayton, G. A. Cohen,
Oliver Dowlen, Sarah Fine, Alan Hamlin, Robert Jubb, Fabienne Peter, Jonathan Quong,
Andrew Reeve, Keith Sutherland, Stuart White, Karl Widerquist, and Jens Ziska. Special
thanks go to my examiners, David Estlund and Adam Swift, and to two anonymous reviewers
and the editors of the journal for their comments.
This content downloaded from 147.251.160.163 on Wed, 04 Apr 2018 15:35:07 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
Saunders Democracy, Political Equality, and Majority Rule 149
selected and that vote determines the outcome. This procedure is
democratic and egalitarian, since all have an equal chance to influence
outcomes, but obviously not majoritarian.
It is often thought that there is a straightforward entailment from
democracy, to political equality, to majority rule. It is commonly assumed
that if the people should rule then they must do so on an
equal basis (since inequality smacks of oligarchy) and that, if all count
equally, more votes must count for more.1
However, democracy, political
equality, and majority rule are three distinct concepts and no one
of these logically entails either of the others.2
It remains possible that
substantive normative argument can establish that, for instance, the
best or even only justifiable form of democracy is an egalitarian one.
My purpose is not to settle all of these normative questions, which
would be too great a task for a single essay. I attempt to show that the
alternative to majority rule that I offer (lottery voting) has something
to be said for it in at least some circumstances, but this is primarily
to underline the real need for justifications of majority rule (as opposed
to democracy or political equality).
It is necessary, before proceeding further, to stipulate how democracy,
political equality, and majority rule are to be understood:
Democracy: The decisions made by a group must be appropriately
responsive to the expressed wishes of the members of that group.3
Political equality: Each group member must have an equal (chance
of) influence over the group’s decisions.
Majority rule: The option that gets the most votes should be the
group decision.
These definitions are intended to be as minimal and ecumenical be-
1. For example, Robert Dahl and Charles Lindblom, Politics, Economics and Welfare:
Planning and Politico-Economic Systems Resolved into Basic Social Processes, 2nd ed. (Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1976), 44, claim that if the minority prevail over the majority
then their votes must be given greater weight. As I show below, this is not the case.
2. Of course, one can use the words any way one likes. One could define ‘democracy’
semantically, in terms of majority rule; but one would then presumably have to acknowledge
both that democracy, so defined, need not be of any value and that some other,
nondemocratic system could be preferable. In this case, the following argument should
be taken as showing that there are conceivable nondemocratic systems that respect the
ideals of citizen sovereignty and political equality and thus may be as desirable as de-
mocracy.
3. The essential idea here seems to be the extent of the franchise. Democracy is rule
of the majority, as opposed to the few, but this does not entail that those decision makers
must operate by majority rule. I explore this contrast, and the definition of democracy,
in “A Relativized Definition of ‘Democracy’” (unpublished manuscript, University of Ox-
ford).
This content downloaded from 147.251.160.163 on Wed, 04 Apr 2018 15:35:07 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
150 Ethics October 2010
tween different theories of democracy as possible. Political equality,
for example, is consistent with either a narrowly aggregative view (one
person, one vote; one vote, one weight) or with deliberative democracy,
provided that all have equal access to the deliberative forum.
Democracy, so defined, is a matter of citizen sovereignty or the
responsiveness of decisions to the expressed wishes of the people.
This, I believe, is the idea’s essential content.4
Some propose to build
political equality into their definition of democracy.5
This is unhelpful,
however, since arguments may be given why some ought to have
more votes than others, for instance, because they have more at stake
in the matter being decided.6
Whether or not these proposals can be
justified substantively, there seems no reason to exclude such a system
from being democratic, provided that everyone gets some influence.
Inequality will threaten democracy if it reaches the point where some
effectively have no influence at all (for instance, if one person has a
million votes), but small inequalities—such as between those in differently
sized districts—may not matter at all.7
I shall say relatively
little about political equality in what follows. The main thrust of my
argument concerns the connection between democracy and majority
rule, so I shall simply grant the desirability of political equality. My
argument will be that democracy, even combined with political equality,
does not require majority rule.
Since democracy, political equality, and majority rule are distinct
ideas, each stands in need of separate justification. It is not, here, my
intention to attack or defend any of them, though I aim to show that
the last of these is rarely given adequate general justification. Majority
4. Similar characterizations are proposed by Charles Beitz, Political Equality: An Essay
in Democratic Theory (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1989), 17; and David Estlund,
Democratic Authority: A Philosophical Framework (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University
Press, 2008), 38. Note that this is proposed as a sortal classification, allowing us to describe
regimes as democratic or not. It may be thought that democracy is a scalar concept,
coming in degrees. I have some sympathy for this idea (particularly, for example, if it is
connected to the extent of the franchise). I cannot give a full argument about the definition
of democracy here, but I assume it will sometimes be useful or necessary to adopt
a sortal classification and that this definition is then appropriate.
5. For example, Robert Dahl, Democracy and Its Critics (New Haven, CT: Yale University
Press, 1989), 109–11, and On Democracy (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1998), 37–
38.
6. As proposed by Harry Brighouse and Marc Fleurbaey, “Democracy and Proportionality,”
Journal of Political Philosophy 18 (2010): 137–55. For a related proposal, see David
Heyd and Uzi Segal, “Democratically Elected Aristocracies,” Social Choice Welfare 27 (2006):
103–27.
7. Doubts about the necessity of political equality are expressed by Estlund, Democratic
Authority, 206–22; and Andrew Rehfeld, The Concept of Constituency: Political Representation,
Democratic Legitimacy, and Institutional Design (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005),
193–97.
This content downloaded from 147.251.160.163 on Wed, 04 Apr 2018 15:35:07 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
Saunders Democracy, Political Equality, and Majority Rule 151
rule may be unobjectionable in many contexts, but there are some
cases—like when it permanently excludes a certain minority8
—
where it may be not only unjust but also undemocratic, because
members of this minority are effectively excluded from influence
altogether. Though a few others have before questioned the central
place given to majority rule, less attention has been given to describing
alternative institutions.9
I shall outline an alternative procedure,
lottery voting, that satisfies the conditions of democracy and political
equality.10
In lottery voting, each person casts a vote for their favored option
but, rather than the option with most votes automatically winning, a
single vote is randomly selected and that one determines the out-
come.11
This procedure is democratic, since all members of the community
have a chance to influence outcomes, but is not majority rule,
since the vote of someone in the minority may be picked. It is, as I
describe it, egalitarian, since all have an equal chance of being
picked.12
It gives each voter an equal chance of being decisive, but
voters do not have equal chances of getting their way—rather, the
chance of each option winning is proportional to the number of votes
it obtains. This shows that democracy and political equality do not
8. These minorities may be identified simply by their political preferences, though
they may also share ascriptive characteristics such as ethnicity. Of course, we may want to
exclude some minorities, e.g., the Ku Klux Klan, but this is because their preferred policies
are unjust rather than because they are minorities. I address such concerns in Sec. V.
9. For instance, Peter Jones, “Political Equality and Majority Rule,” in The Nature of
Political Theory, ed. David Miller and Larry Siedentop (Oxford: Clarendon, 1983), 155–82;
and Mathias Risse, “Arguing for Majority Rule,” Journal of Political Philosophy 12 (2004):
41–64.
10. This name comes from Akhil Reed Amar, “Choosing Representatives by Lottery
Voting,” Yale Law Journal 93 (1984): 1283–1308, although he proposes it only for electing
representatives, whereas I suggest that groups could use it for decision making. Similar
proposals, under various names, are found in Bruce Ackerman, Social Justice in the Liberal
State (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1980), 285–89; David Estlund, “Beyond Fairness
and Deliberation: The Epistemic Dimension of Democratic Authority,” in Deliberative
Democracy: Essays on Reason and Politics, ed. James Bohman and William Rehg (Cambridge,
MA: MIT Press, 1997), 173–204, 191–94; Jones, “Political Equality and Majority Rule,” 170–
71; and Robert Wolff, In Defence of Anarchism (New York: Harper & Row, 1970), 44–45, but
none of these explore the possibility at length.
11. I am assuming a group making decisions directly. Though the decision could in
principle be the appointment of a representative here there are other concerns in play
(we care not only that a particular representative be the choice of a particular constituency
but also about the overall composition of the group of representatives). We may favor
different voting systems for different purposes and nothing I say contradicts this; my point
is merely that lottery voting is a possibility, not that it is the best procedure for any particular
form of decision making.
12. It is also compatible with weighted voting. Since each vote has an equal chance
of selection, one person can be given more influence simply by giving them more votes.
This content downloaded from 147.251.160.163 on Wed, 04 Apr 2018 15:35:07 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
152 Ethics October 2010
conceptually require majority rule. Moreover, I will argue that there
are no clearly decisive general reasons to prefer majority rule to lottery
voting in all cases. The possibility of lottery voting therefore demonstrates
the need to distinguish more carefully between arguments
for democracy, for political equality, and for majority rule, since the
former (even in conjunction) do not entail the latter. If we can be
democrats without being majoritarians then arguments for majority
rule are necessary. In practice, the choice between majority rule and
lottery voting will likely depend on contextual factors, such as whether
there is a permanent minority in the society in question.
Section I begins by identifying three ways of justifying democracy;
as an intrinsically just procedure, as conducive to substantively just or
good outcomes, and for its valuable by-products. Section II argues
that considerations of intrinsic fairness do not necessarily justify majority
rule, since fairness can be satisfied by nondemocratic procedures
like lotteries, and majority rule may not be fair in certain conditions,
such as where there is a permanently excluded minority.
Section III argues that instrumental considerations do not necessarily
favor majority rule either, since it will be a contingent matter whether
majority rule or lottery voting better conduces to the good consequences
in question, whether better decisions or valuable by-products
of the procedure. It seems that no general argument for democracy
implies a commitment to majority rule. Section IV presents six arguments
that have been offered specifically for majority rule and argues
that none decisively favor majority rule over lottery voting. Finally,
Section V considers and rejects four obvious objections to lottery voting,
and Section VI concludes.
I. WHY DEMOCRACY?
Historically, arguments for democracy have not always distinguished
it from majority rule. Consequently, we find democracy justified on
grounds like satisfying most people’s preferences is likely to be better
from a utilitarian point of view or mean that the regime enjoys greater
perceived legitimacy.13
We should not, however, beg the question
against nonmajoritarian forms of democracy. At its most abstract, democracy
simply means rule by the people. This, I take it, implies a
procedure that is responsive to people’s expressed preferences and
that is broadly inclusive (since the contrast with oligarchy lies in the
extent of the franchise), but it need not be egalitarian or, as I shall
show below, majoritarian. While the best or most defensible form of
democracy may indeed be based on political equality or majority rule,
13. Alf Ross, Why Democracy? (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1952), 42–
53.
This content downloaded from 147.251.160.163 on Wed, 04 Apr 2018 15:35:07 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
Saunders Democracy, Political Equality, and Majority Rule 153
that is a further, substantive question. We should look first for the
most general arguments for democracy.
Arguments for democracy can be subdivided into intrinsic and
instrumental defenses. The former defend democracy either as its
own sui generis value, which is unlikely to convince anyone who is
not already a democrat, or as a requirement of some other shared
value. Republicans, for instance, may see democracy as an essential
ingredient of freedom as nondomination.14
Others regard democracy
as a requirement of justice, because giving everyone a vote is part of
respecting them as an equal.15
I focus on the justice-based argument
for democracy, though I believe my case could be extended to other
values. It should be noted that, though these arguments usually assume
political equality, this is not necessary. While the generic principle
of justice requires that like cases be treated alike, it may also
require us to treat relevantly unlike cases differently and thus require
a form of geometric proportionality.16
If we find some basis on which
to defend an equal right to equal participation, then justice will indeed
require not only democracy, in its most abstract sense, but also
political equality, thereby restricting the permissible range of democratic
systems. However, if we accept that people have unequal claims
to rule or participation, then we may have an argument, based on
justice, for inegalitarian democracy.17
For instance, if some decision
has greater effects on women than men, and we accept that people’s
say ought to be proportionate to what they have at stake in the decision,
then the just democratic solution may give both men and
women some influence, but women a greater share proportional to
their greater stakes.
The second way of arguing for democracy is instrumentally. Such
defenses claim that there is nothing valuable about democratic procedures
in themselves; they are justified only when and because they
14. For example, Philip Pettit, “Republican Freedom and Contestatory Democracy,”
in Democracy’s Value, ed. Ian Shapiro and Casiano Hacker-Cordo`n (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1999). I explore this line in “Republicanism and Abstention” (unpublished
manuscript, University of Oxford) and shall say little further about republicanism
here.
15. This line is taken by Thomas Christiano, The Constitution of Equality (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2008).
16. For a classic argument, see Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics (Indianapolis: Hackett,
1999), bk. 5. For a modern argument that fairness requires proportionate satisfaction of
competing claims, see John Broome, “Fairness,” Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 91
(1990–91): 87–101. For discussion of Broome’s views, see Brad Hooker, “Fairness,” Ethical
Theory and Moral Practice 8 (2005): 329–52; and Ben Saunders, “Fairness between Competing
Claims,” Res Publica 16 (2010): 41–55.
17. Of the sort proposed in Brighouse and Fleurbaey, “Democracy and Proportion-
ality.”
This content downloaded from 147.251.160.163 on Wed, 04 Apr 2018 15:35:07 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
154 Ethics October 2010
produce good consequences. We can distinguish two forms of instrumental
argument. First, outcome-based arguments focus on the decisions
that are made.18
These could, in principle, have been reached
by nondemocratic means, such as by a group of enlightened guardians,
but—one who defends democracy on these grounds must maintain—
it is more likely that they will be arrived at by a popular vote. Again,
those who endorse this argument are not committed to political
equality.19
In fact, they would presumably accept whatever political
arrangements are most likely to lead to the best decisions. If it turned
out that plural voting produced better decisions, the only question is
whether they would call this ‘democracy’ or abandon that term alto-
gether.
Outcome-based arguments are, obviously, contingent defenses of
democracy, since it is an empirical question how the favored outcomes
are best realized. A second form of instrumental argument, however,
focuses on by-products of the democratic process, which may not be
realized by other means. For example, J. S. Mill favors (a nonegalitarian
form of) democracy on the grounds that considering questions
of the common good leads to a more active and virtuous citizenry,20
while Richard Vernon focuses on the tendency of democratic procedures
to stimulate public reason and debate.21
These arguments share
something in common with the intrinsic defenses of democracy, since
the procedure is essential to realizing the benefits that they focus on.
There is a difference, however, between valuing the procedure intrinsically,
as part of what it is to treat people justly, and valuing it instrumentally,
even if it is a necessary means to the ends sought. Moreover,
as the example of Mill shows, those who defend democratic procedures
on the grounds of their by-products are not thereby committed
18. The clearest defender of such an approach is Richard Arneson, “Defending the
Purely Instrumental Account of Democratic Legitimacy,” Journal of Political Philosophy 11
(2003): 122–32, and “Democracy Is Not Intrinsically Just,” in Justice and Democracy: Essays
for Brian Barry, ed. Keith Dowding, Robert E. Goodin, and Carole Pateman (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2004), 40–58. Estlund’s epistemic proceduralism also seems
to belong to this category, although he adds a qualified acceptability requirement; see
Estlund, Democratic Authority, 40–44. This category also includes “minimalist” defenses of
democracy, for instance, Joseph Schumpeter, Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy (London:
G. Allen & Unwin, 1943), chap. 22; and Adam Przeworski, “Minimalist Conception of
Democracy: A Defense,” in Shapiro and Hacker-Cordo`n, Democracy’s Value, 23–50.
19. For example, Beitz, Political Equality, 31–46; and Brighouse and Fleurbaey, “Democracy
and Proportionality,” 142.
20. John Stuart Mill, “Considerations on Representative Government,” in On Liberty
and Other Essays, ed. John Gray (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), chap. 3.
21. Richard Vernon, Political Morality: A Theory of Liberal Democracy (London: Continuum,
2001).
This content downloaded from 147.251.160.163 on Wed, 04 Apr 2018 15:35:07 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
Saunders Democracy, Political Equality, and Majority Rule 155
to political equality, since one may think that these by-products will
be equally—or even better—produced by inegalitarian procedures.
A full defense of democracy is beyond the scope of this essay, and
I cannot, here, adjudicate among these different arguments. My point
is that none of them necessarily require either political equality or
—as I will argue in the following two sections—majority rule. It may
be, as I will consider in Section IV, that one’s particular reason for
favoring democracy also gives one reason to favor majority rule. For
example, one may think that democracy is likely to produce better
outcomes because one believes that democracies satisfy the conditions
of Condorcet’s jury theorem, which tells us that (under said assumptions)
the majority are more likely to be right about a matter of fact
than any single individual.22
One can, however, hold any of the three
general positions outlined in this section without necessarily being
committed to majority rule—such a commitment always stands in
need of further argument to show that majority rule is indeed just or
the best way to produce the desired outcomes.
II. INTRINSIC FAIRNESS AND MAJORITY RULE
First, there are those who advocate democracy as an intrinsically just
procedure or way of treating everyone fairly.23
It is unclear, though,
whether majority rule always does treat all persons equally. Simply
giving everyone an equal vote is not enough if some votes are worth
more than others. One reason this might be so is if district sizes were
greatly unequal. Another is if one person’s vote was more likely to be
pivotal than another’s, simply because of how others vote. This is easily
seen if a bloc of voters always votes together, effectively becoming
one person with a more-weighty vote. If we have nine people, each
with one vote, and five always vote together, then they will always be
a majority, so majority rule denies the other four any influence what-
soever.24
Members of permanent minorities often complain that ma-
22. For explanations of Condorcet’s jury theorem, see Estlund, Democratic Authority,
223–30; and Przeworski, “Minimalist Conception,” 26–30.
23. Here I use ‘just’ and ‘fair’ interchangeably. For some possible contrasts, see Saunders,
“Fairness between Competing Claims,” 42–43.
24. The other four may sometimes get their way, when their wants happen to coincide
with those of the five, but they have no influence—their votes never matter to this outcome.
In reality it is unlikely that the five will always vote together, but such cases are possible
with weighted voting. In 1958 the European Economic Community had a system of
weighted votes that gave Luxembourg no power whatsoever. See Dan Felsenthal and Moshe´
Machover, The Measurement of Voting Power: Theory and Practice, Problems and Paradoxes (Cheltenham:
Edward Elgar, 1998), 14; and Alan Taylor, Mathematics and Politics: Strategy, Voting,
Power and Proof (New York: Springer-Verlag, 1995), 71–75.
This content downloaded from 147.251.160.163 on Wed, 04 Apr 2018 15:35:07 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
156 Ethics October 2010
jority rule simply serves to exclude them from influence.25
Even defenders
of majority rule are sensitive to this worry.26
It is generally agreed that majority rule is most defensible where
society is divided by numerous cross-cutting cleavages, so that both
majorities and minorities are fluid and changing.27
This means that
those who win or lose on one decision have no grounds to assume
that they will be in the same position on the next occasion, since they
may find themselves in either a majority or a minority on any given
issue. This condition is not satisfied when there is a permanent minority,
whose preferences differ from those of the majority. Members
of such a group know, in advance of any given vote, that they will be
outnumbered and therefore lose. Consequently, it is hard to see why
they should accept that majority rule treats them fairly. Since the procedure
appears rigged against them from the start, it seems more like
someone proposing that they agree to toss a biased coin to settle their
disagreement.
It is useful to contrast democratic procedures to a lottery. Critics
of intrinsic fairness-based arguments for democracy have often suggested
that, if the only justification of democratic procedures is simply
that they are fair to all parties, then it would be equally justified to
use a lottery to decide between courses of action.28
If this claim is
correct, which I think it is, then it does not show that fairness plays
no part in justifying democracy, but only that it alone is insufficient.29
A simple lottery over options treats all citizens equally, giving all
an equal expectation of getting their most preferred option (though
actual levels of [dis]satisfaction may still be unequal). Such a lottery
is obviously not democratic, however, since by assigning an equal
probability to each possible outcome it disregards citizens’ inputs altogether.
A justification of democracy has to appeal to something beyond
mere procedural fairness to explain this responsiveness. This,
presumably, will involve some reference to the likely consequences of
25. For example, Lani Guinier, “No Two Seats: The Elusive Quest for Political
Equality,” Virginia Law Review 77 (1991): 1413–1514.
26. Christiano, The Constitution of Equality, 288–99.
27. For example, Robert Dahl, A Preface to Democratic Theory (Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 1956), 124–51; Giovanni Sartori, The Theory of Democracy Revisited (Chatham,
NJ: Chatham House, 1987), 134–37; and Anthony McGann, The Logic of Democracy: Reconciling
Equality, Deliberation, and Minority Protection (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan
Press, 2006), 89–111.
28. Beitz, Political Equality, 76; Estlund, Democratic Authority, 66 and 82–84; Robert
Goodin, “Democracy, Justice and Impartiality,” in Dowding, Goodin, and Pateman, Justice
and Democracy, 97–111, 99; William Nelson, On Justifying Democracy (London: Routledge &
Kegan Paul, 1980), 19.
29. I argue this more fully in “Estlund’s Flight from Fairness,” Representation 46 (2010):
5–17.
This content downloaded from 147.251.160.163 on Wed, 04 Apr 2018 15:35:07 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
Saunders Democracy, Political Equality, and Majority Rule 157
democratic procedures, although whether the relevant consequences
will be decision outcomes or by-products of the procedures is still an
open question.
We do not ordinarily think that the purpose of democracy is to
realize the equal satisfaction of all groups. This can be seen if we consider
cases where there is persisting disagreement over a number of
decisions. Suppose, for example, that society is divided into two groups:
economizers and aesthetes.30
The economizers care only about material
possessions and will sacrifice other values for the sake of efficiency.
The aesthetes, conversely, value beauty and the environment and are
willing to pay more to preserve these ideals. Assume that three-quarters
of the society are economizers, while one-quarter are aesthetes,
and that they face regular trade-offs between economic efficiency and
aesthetic values, for instance, in controls over pollution and matters
of urban management (street cleaning, tree planting, etc.). Predictably,
a majority each time will favor the cheaper option, even at the
cost of aesthetic values, but, if there are four such decisions, it hardly
seems fair for them all to go the way of the economizers. Were we to
toss a coin over each decision, however, or simply take it in turns to
satisfy each group, then the aesthetes would expect to get their way
on half of the decisions, which also seems unfair, since they are only
a quarter of the population.
It seems that what fairness requires here is proportionality, rather
than blindly enforcing equality regardless of differences. Ideally, this
might be proportionality of outcomes but, where that cannot be satisfied,
proportionality of chances may be the best approximation.31
Democracy is a matter of fair decision-making procedures, rather than
whatever produces substantively fair outcomes. Matters are complicated
by the fact that we have unequal numbers on each side of the
dispute. Thankfully, how to adjudicate fairly between competing
groups of unequal sizes has been much discussed by certain moral
philosophers debating the justifiability of interpersonal aggregation.
Taurek suggests that, in cases where we can save either one person’s
life or five other people’s lives, we treat all individuals equally
by tossing a coin, giving each person a 50 percent chance of survival.32
This “equal chances” solution has, however, seemed unsatisfactory to
30. This example is adapted from Jones, “Political Equality and Majority Rule,” 167–
68.
31. Broome, “Fairness,” 95; and Frances Kamm, “Equal Treatment and Equal
Chances,” Philosophy and Public Affairs 14 (1985): 177–94.
32. John Taurek, “Should the Numbers Count?” Philosophy and Public Affairs 6 (1977):
293–316.
This content downloaded from 147.251.160.163 on Wed, 04 Apr 2018 15:35:07 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
158 Ethics October 2010
many.33
Scanlon suggests that, while tossing a coin may be a reasonable
procedure between groups of equal size, the extra people in a
larger group could reasonably reject a decision-making procedure
that gave their presence no weight whatsoever and therefore concludes
that one should save the greater number.34
Others have suggested
that another way of counting each person’s claim to be rescued
equally would be to hold a weighted lottery.35
Surprisingly, while several
participants in this debate reference democratic procedures,36
there has been little attention paid to it by democratic theorists.37
The
two cases are, however, structurally similar: we can satisfy either of two
distinct groups and it is agreed that it would be fair to toss a coin
were the groups of equal size.38
The crucial issue is what fairness requires
when these groups are unequal in size; the prominent possibilities
being still to toss a coin (equal chances), to save the greater
number (majority rule), or to hold a proportionally weighted lottery
(proportional chances).
Those who have considered the democratic solution to conflicts
between unequally sized groups usually favor some form of propor-
tionality.39
This reflects the fact that democracy is a matter of rule by
33. For early responses, see Derek Parfit, “Innumerate Ethics,” Philosophy and Public
Affairs 7 (1978): 285–301; and Gregory Kavka, “The Numbers Should Count,” Philosophical
Studies 36 (1979): 285–94.
34. T. M. Scanlon, What We Owe to Each Other (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University
Press, 1998), 229–35. For criticisms, see Michael Otsuka, “Scanlon and the Claims of the
Many versus the One,” Analysis 60 (2000): 288–93; Joseph Raz, “Numbers, with and without
Contractualism,” Ratio 16 (2003): 346–67; and Ben Saunders, “A Defence of Weighted
Lotteries in Life Saving Cases,” Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 12 (2009): 279–90.
35. This possibility was (to the best of my knowledge) first suggested by Kavka, “The
Numbers Should Count,” 294, and is also considered by Kamm, “Equal Treatment.” Arguments
for such a proposal can be found in Jens Timmerman, “The Individualist Lottery:
How People Count, but Not Their Numbers,” Analysis 64 (2004): 106–12; and Saunders,
“A Defence of Weighted Lotteries.”
36. See Kamm, “Equal Treatment,” 181 and 191; Taurek, “Numbers,” 310–14; and
David Wasserman and Alan Strudler, “Can a Nonconsequentialist Count Lives?” Philosophy
and Public Affairs 31 (2003): 71–94, 81 n. 18, and 92 n. 33.
37. The only case I am aware of is Risse, “Arguing,” 50 n. 22.
38. The fairness of lotteries is accounted for by George Sher, “What Makes a Lottery
Fair?” Nouˆs 14 (1980): 203–16; Broome, “Fairness”; Peter Stone, “Why Lotteries Are Just,”
Journal of Political Philosophy 15 (2007): 276–95; and Ben Saunders, “The Equality of Lotteries,”
Philosophy 83 (2008): 359–72. The use of lotteries to break tied votes is suggested
by Brian Barry, Political Argument (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1965), 88; Robert
Dahl, Democracy and Its Critics (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1989), 141; Gerry
Mackie, Democracy Defended (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 5, 50, and 84;
and McGann, Logic, 62. It is also employed in practice; see Barbara Goodwin, Justice by
Lottery, 2nd ed. (Exeter: Imprint Academic, 2005), 55, 198, and 255.
39. Jones, “Political Equality and Majority Rule,” 174–75; and Risse, “Arguing,” 60–
61.
This content downloaded from 147.251.160.163 on Wed, 04 Apr 2018 15:35:07 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
Saunders Democracy, Political Equality, and Majority Rule 159
the people, not merely for the people. That is, it is not about equal
satisfaction of preferences (as shown by the economizers and aesthetes
example and our rejection of coin tossing), but equal respect
for each person’s agency.40
Each person’s vote must have equal influence
over what is done.41
Lottery voting reflects this by giving each
voter an equal chance of being decisive. It does not follow that voters
will be equally satisfied, or even that they should expect to be so, for
this would be undemocratic where the split of opinion is unequal.
Where our aim is to respect each person’s input into decision making
equally, however, a weighted lottery is one possibility. In fact, this solution
seems more reasonable in most democratic cases than in the
life saving case, because it seems more reasonable to share Taurek’s
assumption that neither alternative is impersonally worse (or, at least,
that the option favored by the majority is necessarily likely to be better,
given problems such as unequal preference intensities)42
and to
assume that people want to be counted in the decision making, rather
than simply to get their way.
Goodin argues that, where we toss a coin to break a tie, whichever
side wins the lottery may be legitimate, but is no more democratic,
for that status depends on winning people’s votes.43
So it is, I would
argue, with lottery voting. Since democracy is supposed to be rule by
all of the people, the ideal would be unanimity. Given a difference of
opinion or conflict of interest, some will get their way and others will
not. In these circumstances, the fact that a given option has some
level of support is prima facie reason to suppose that it has some
democratic credentials. The problem is that we need some fair way
to decide which people will get their way when there is disagreement
between them. A lottery over votes treats each person fairly, by giving
each of them an equal chance of being decisive. It also, as shown
later, encourages deliberation and attempts at persuasion.
Thus, it is far from clear whether intrinsic fairness favors majority
rule. First, it seems that fairness may be at least equally satisfied by
tossing a coin, instead of using any democratic procedure at all. Second,
if we are to use a democratic procedure (perhaps because it is
40. This has not always been sufficiently appreciated by some democratic theorists,
though others do emphasize the importance of agency, e.g., Fabienne Peter, Democratic
Legitimacy (London: Routledge, 2009), 25–30.
41. I assume an egalitarian form of democracy, but saying that each vote should have
equal influence is compatible with some people having more votes than others.
42. Taurek, “Numbers,” 304–8. See also Kamm, “Equal Treatment,” 178–80; Rob Lawlor,
“Taurek, Numbers and Probabilities,” Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 9 (2006): 149–
66, 150–59; and Weyma Lu¨bbe, “Taurek’s No Worse Claim,” Philosophy and Public Affairs
36 (2008): 69–85.
43. Goodin, “Democracy, Justice and Impartiality,” 99.
This content downloaded from 147.251.160.163 on Wed, 04 Apr 2018 15:35:07 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
160 Ethics October 2010
likely to lead to better outcomes), then it is not obvious that fairness
requires—or even is satisfied by—majority rule. This may be fair in
some cases, like where all have an equal chance of being in the majority.
Where there is a permanently excluded minority, however, majority
rule seems unfair. In these cases, lottery voting, because it gives
the minority a proportional chance of victory, seems both fairer and
more democratic.
III. INSTRUMENTAL ARGUMENTS FOR DEMOCRACY
AND MAJORITY RULE
It seems that the most obvious reasons to prefer democratic procedures
to lotteries involve appeal to their consequences, whether making
better decisions or having some positive by-products or side effects.
The question is whether these considerations give us reason to
adopt majority rule in particular. Some arguments for majority rule
rest on its achieving better outcomes; for example, it might be maintained
that the majority are more likely to identify substantively just
outcomes for Condorcetian reasons or that the logic of the median
voter theorem tends to encourage middle ground compromises that
give everyone partial satisfaction. I shall address these particular arguments
in the following section. For now, my concern is with the
very general idea that democracy will promote better consequences.
Even without a specific account of why democracy should tend
to produce good decisions, it may seem intuitively likely that deliberate
choice by a group of people is likely to satisfy the weak condition
of being better than random. This very general intuition does not,
however, tell against lottery voting. Whichever vote is randomly selected
will identify an option that someone has deliberately chosen,
presumably because it seems good to them (not necessarily for them).
Lottery voting therefore differs from a simple lottery in that it retains
an element of deliberate, reasoned choice, so it should not be identified
with decisions made at random. To suppose that majority rule
is likely to produce better outcomes than lottery voting requires further
argument.
There are at least three possible arguments that lottery voting
may actually produce better outcomes than majority rule, at least in
certain cases. First, as we saw above, where there is a fixed majorityminority
division, majority rule is likely to lead to the same people
getting their way all of the time. While minorities may have their basic
rights protected by constitutional provisions, this is not enough. Intuitive
standards of outcome fairness require each group to get some
satisfaction, but permanent minorities may never be satisfied. While
lottery voting does not guarantee proportionality of outcomes, it
makes it likely that, over enough decisions, each group will get its way
This content downloaded from 147.251.160.163 on Wed, 04 Apr 2018 15:35:07 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
Saunders Democracy, Political Equality, and Majority Rule 161
at least some of the time. Proportionality of outcomes is unlikely under
majority rule because, even if all members of the majority agree
that the minority should sometimes get their way and are willing to
vote with the minority for this reason, there is no method of coordinating
such “defection” to ensure that the minority are sometimes in
a majority.44
Thus, one might think lottery voting likely to produce
fairer outcomes in cases where there is a permanent minority who
would otherwise be excluded by majority rule. Second, if we assume
that there may be a wise minority in society, on at least some issues,
then allowing them to get their way and be proved right means that
in future more people may defer to their judgment, making it more
likely that future decisions will be right. Third, as I will argue in the
following section, lottery voting may do more to encourage deliberation,
since one will always have an incentive to persuade as many
voters as possible of the merits of one’s case, and one may think that
this will promote better outcomes.
None of these arguments are intended to be conclusive; my aim
is merely to show that there are somewhat plausible arguments that
lottery voting may produce better outcomes than majority rule, and
thus one who favors an instrumental justification of democracy must
still engage in further substantive argument as to whether that should
be majoritarian. One might, nonetheless, still suspect that options
preferred by a majority are likely to be better than those backed only
by a few who happen to be lucky enough to have their votes selected.
I shall come, later, to specific reasons why this may be so, such as an
appeal to Condorcet’s jury theorem or worry that extremist minorities
may get their way. We might conjecture that majority rule will be
preferable to lottery voting, because it reflects considerations seen as
relevant by many, rather than being potentially hostage to a few unreflective
voters. But, conversely, we might say that majorities may be
subject to crowd psychology or that majority rule, by making outcomes
appear certain, discourages reflection on alternatives. All of
these arguments require further elaboration, but the point is that
whether one seeking good outcomes prefers majority rule or lottery
voting is a contingent matter, and both are possible democratic procedures
that may be favored in different contexts.
I want at this stage simply to note one further weakness of outcome-based
justifications of majority rule. It seems that many of them
simply assume not only that there are right and wrong, or better and
worse, answers to political problems but also that there is only one
right answer. Consequently, there is a temptation to assume that one
44. The impossibility of coordinating this defection is therefore a problem for that
solution, proposed by Rehfeld, The Concept of Constituency, 233–34.
This content downloaded from 147.251.160.163 on Wed, 04 Apr 2018 15:35:07 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
162 Ethics October 2010
group—probably the majority—is more likely to have identified this
answer and that others are wrong. This approach, however, overlooks
the fact that indeterminacy may be prevalent in political decision
making. As a number of theorists have observed, even if there are
some wrong answers, politics often involves making decisions between
two alternatives neither of which is objectively worse.45
One need not
be a radical value pluralist to think that there will be cases of incommensurability,
particularly (though not necessarily only) when we
must trade one person’s interests off against another’s. Suppose, for
example, that all agree on some general social goal, such as maximizing
aggregate utility or the position of the worst off. This allows
us to exclude many possible outcomes as suboptimal but is unlikely
to determine exactly what we should do. Two or more alternatives
may equally satisfy this aim, yet differ in terms of how well off particular
individuals or groups are.46
For example, if the total utility that
we can achieve is five units, we may face the choice between distributing
it (3, 2) or (2, 3) between two equal groups in society. Here is
a conflict of interest, where each group can legitimately prefer that
they be the better-off ones (within the constraints of justice) and we
need a fair procedure to adjudicate between them.
This suggests that, while intrinsic fairness is not alone enough to
justify democracy, neither is a concern for the best decisions. If neither
outcome is impersonally better, we may still need a fair procedure
to adjudicate between them and, since majority rule may be
unfair to a permanent minority, lottery voting could be the most acceptable
procedure.47
Indeterminacy may also strike even where there
is no conflict of interests; for instance, deliberations about capital
punishment may have to weigh the values of justice, mercy, deterrence,
and the risks of innocent deaths. It may be that there is no
uniquely reasonable solution to this balancing act but, rather, a range
of reasonable decisions (e.g., the death penalty may reasonably be
retained for homicide, but not for shoplifting).
Instrumental defenses of democracy can also appeal to by-products
of the process, rather than claiming it leads to better decisions,
45. For examples of such an observation, see David Miller, “Deliberative Democracy
and Social Choice,” in Debating Deliberative Democracy, ed. James Fishkin and Peter Laslett
(Oxford: Blackwell, 2003), 184; and Philip Pettit, “Democracy, Electoral and Contestatory,”
in NOMOS XLII: Designing Democratic Institutions, ed. Ian Shapiro and Stephen Macedo
(New York: New York University Press, 2000), 118.
46. A similar problem is that there may be disagreement over how to realize a shared
end. See Robert Goodin and Geoffrey Brennan, “Bargaining over Beliefs,” Ethics 111
(2001): 256–77, 258–61.
47. I argue for this at more length in “Why Majority Rule Cannot Be Based Only on
Procedural Equality,” Ratio Juris 23 (2010): 113–22.
This content downloaded from 147.251.160.163 on Wed, 04 Apr 2018 15:35:07 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
Saunders Democracy, Political Equality, and Majority Rule 163
but it seems that any by-product identified as a possible justification
of democratic procedures could also be the result of lottery voting.
Mill, for example, emphasizes the fact that participating in collective
decision making broadens people’s horizons and encourages them to
see the larger social good.48
Again, this is not obviously satisfied only
by majority rule. Indeed, since the likelihood of any individual vote
being pivotal to a winning coalition is so low, it seems that majority
rule may encourage irresponsible voting. Mill suggests that each person
should consider their vote as if they were the only voter and the
decision depended entirely on them.49
Lottery voting encourages this
attitude, because it may be that the outcome is decided solely by one’s
vote. Therefore, lottery voting may be more conducive to the educational
benefits Mill identifies than majority rule.
Some of the arguments for majority rule offered in the next section
are specific arguments that it will bring about better consequences.
I shall argue there that none of these are generally successful.
For the time being, however, the conclusion is that a commitment
to democracy on instrumental grounds does not necessarily imply a
commitment to majority rule. It is only a contingent defense of democratic
procedures to begin with, and it will be a further empirical
contingency whether majority rule or lottery voting is more likely to
produce the good outcomes identified.
IV. ARGUMENTS FOR MAJORITY RULE
So far, I have shown that no general argument for democracy, whether
based on its intrinsic fairness, conduciveness to better decisions, or
valuable by-products, necessarily implies majority rule. We can be
democrats without being committed to majority rule and vice versa.
Therefore, majority rule is something that must be argued for. Some
have indeed recognized this fact and offered a variety of arguments
for majority rule. This section surveys six such arguments, as identified
by Risse in a skeptical survey.50
These are the perversity of minority
rule, maximization of self-determination, respect, Condorcet’s
jury theorem, May’s theorem, and compromise as a way of maximizing
overall satisfaction.51
Risse claims that none of these arguments pro-
48. Mill, “Considerations,” chap. 3.
49. Ibid., chap. 10, 355.
50. Risse, “Arguing,” 44–45.
51. A further reason, suggested by an anonymous editor, is that people simply accept
majority rule as obviously legitimate and thus decisions reached this way are likely to be
stable. While it is true that majority rule is widely accepted, by many people in many
contexts, it is not universally so. Moreover, there is no reason to suppose that this belief
is somehow innate, as opposed to a product of our majoritarian institutions. If there is
no more fundamental reason to think majority rule preferable to lottery voting, then the
This content downloaded from 147.251.160.163 on Wed, 04 Apr 2018 15:35:07 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
164 Ethics October 2010
vide decisive support for majority rule, so we should look instead for
“fair division” methods of decision making. I offer lottery voting as
one such method, seeking to confirm his conclusions by testing lottery
voting against the arguments he identifies for majority rule. My
contention is that none of these provide a decisive general reason to
favor majority rule over lottery voting.
Minority versus Majority
One argument for majority rule is simply that it would be perverse to
hold a vote in which the smallest minority would get their way. The
problem is not simply that we satisfy fewer people rather than more,
but that such a system induces citizens to misrepresent their preferences,
by voting for their least preferred option.52
This perversity,
however, is the consequence of assuming a deterministic rule that the
(smallest) minority will automatically win. This would not be the case
with lottery voting. Though the minority could prevail, each vote still
advantages whichever option it is cast for—increasing its chances of
victory. It is therefore rational for people to vote for the option that
they most favor. There is, therefore, nothing perverse about lottery
voting.53
Maximization
It is often assumed that majority rule maximizes the number of people
exercising self-determination. This is not necessarily so, though, if we
take a long-term view. If we suppose, plausibly, that only those that
get their way on a given decision are exercising self-determination,
then it is true that majority rule maximizes the number exercising
belief is baseless. It may still be an obstacle to any attempt to implement lottery voting in
practice but would not show that lottery voting could not equally be seen as legitimate
and stable in a society where it was the established decision-making procedure.
52. Such a proposal is discussed by Jack Lively, Democracy (Oxford: Blackwell, 1975),
16 and 24. He claims that people would simply vote for whichever option they liked least.
In a binary case, assuming all voters acted in this way, this would simply result in majority
rule. Where there are three or more options, however, it could deliver different outcomes,
as it would result in the option least acceptable to the fewest people. For example, if four
people rank (A, B, C), two rank (A, C, B), and five rank (B, C, A), then A wins a majority
of first preferences (6:5:0). If the option with the fewest votes wins, and individuals vote
for the option that they least prefer, then the distribution of votes will be (5:2:4), so B
will win with only two votes. See also Kamm, “Equal Treatment,” 182 n. 4.
53. This shows that those who simply contrast the permanent rule of a majority or
a minority are drawing a false dichotomy. Abraham Lincoln does this in his “First Inaugural
Address,” which is quoted by Risse, “Arguing,” 61; and Dahl and Lindblom, Politics, Economics
and Welfare, 44. Lottery voting means that neither the majority nor the minority
get their way all the time.
This content downloaded from 147.251.160.163 on Wed, 04 Apr 2018 15:35:07 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
Saunders Democracy, Political Equality, and Majority Rule 165
self-determination on that given issue.54
If we have five people vote
one way and three vote the other, then the best that we can do is
have five self-determining. But this consequence does not necessarily
hold over a series of decisions. If we regularly face the same division
of opinion, then always satisfying the five means that the three people
never get their way, and so are denied any self-determination (at least,
in collective decisions).
Majority rule may maximize the amount of self-determination, if
it is reasonable to think of this in consequentialist terms. Five people
self-determining in each of eight decisions results in 40 “units” of selfdetermination.
This self-determination is not, however, distributed
fairly—the five get their way on all eight decisions and the three not
at all, which could be represented as (8, 8, 8, 8, 8, 0, 0, 0). If we were
to let each group decide on a proportional number of decisions, then
we would get less aggregate self-determination—just 34 units, that is
(5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 3, 3, 3)—but not only would this be more fairly distributed,
there would be more people exercising some self-determination,
since all eight people now have some share. Lottery voting does not
guarantee proportionality, but we can assume that over a long series
of decisions all could get their way sometimes; thus everyone is able
to exercise some self-determination, which seems preferable to some
enjoying full self-determination at the expense of a persistent minority’s
total exclusion.
Respect
Majority rule is supposed to satisfy the need for a decision while allowing
each person to remain faithful to his conviction. Epistemic
justifications, which claim the majority more likely to be right, may
have difficulty explaining persistent minority opposition.55
One may,
however, endorse majority rule because it respects each person’s judgment,
without claiming rightness. Vernon, for example, argues that
the majority verdict need not produce better outcomes or even better
reflect the preceding deliberation. Rather, his case rests simply on
two facts: “Majority rule has the virtue of encouraging the generalization
of political argument, which is an important service to public
54. I assume that self-determination here means something like autonomy (living
according to one’s own choices), and thus only those who get their way are truly selfdetermining.
An anonymous editor for the journal questions whether self-determination
requires winning a vote, as opposed to merely participating in it. If self-determination
means merely participating in decision making, then it provides a better defense for
democracy (since we can say that all are self-determining), but no defense at all for majority
rule in particular. It is also the case that all participate in lottery voting.
55. See Robert Goodin, “The Paradox of Persisting Opposition,” Philosophy, Politics
and Economics 1 (2003): 109–46.
This content downloaded from 147.251.160.163 on Wed, 04 Apr 2018 15:35:07 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
166 Ethics October 2010
reason; and it also has the virtue that because the counting of votes
records a fact, it can yield the unequivocal answer that we need in
order to have a political authority. Both of these justifications have
weight even for the outvoted. . . . But the idea that democratic majorities
are in some way authoritative, even temporarily, with respect
to the issues that public reason debates, is one that minorities have
no reason to accept.”56
Lottery voting, however, seems to better satisfy these desiderata.
Certainly it provides a determinate outcome to settle disputes, providing
clear guidance when the need for action comes. It also seems
to give more reason to generalize one’s appeal, since every vote helps
one’s cause. Under majority rule, the side with a healthy majority has
no incentive to appeal to the minority, provided that they are confident
of not losing their own supporters. Lottery voting would mean
that no group could ever be guaranteed success, short of achieving
unanimous support, so it is always rational to seek more support. This
would also apply to minorities with no hope of ever winning a
majority—they would increase their chances of success if they could
increase their level of support, even from 10 percent to 20 percent.
Condorcet’s Jury Theorem
Condorcet’s jury theorem, which is essentially an application of the
law of large numbers, shows that if there are right answers to political
questions and voters are more likely than not to identify these, then
a majority of voters are more likely to get things right than any single
individual. If the conditions of the jury theorem hold, then it provides
good reason to go along with the verdict of the majority, since they
are most likely to have identified the right answer. However, it is not
obvious that these conditions do hold in most cases of political decision
making. While the theorem can be generalized to cases where
not all voters are more likely right than wrong, provided that competence
is evenly distributed and the mean remains over 0.5,57
and to
cases with more than two options, provided that voters are more likely
to choose the right one than any wrong one,58
it is still questionable
whether even these weaker conditions are satisfied.
More fundamentally, one does not have to reject any talk of truth
in politics to think that there is room for indeterminacy. While we
might all be able to agree that some outcomes are better than others,
56. Vernon, Political Morality, 142.
57. Bernard Grofman, Guillermo Owen, and Scott Feld, “Thirteen Theorems in
Search of the Truth,” Theory and Decision 15 (1983): 261–78.
58. Christian List and Robert Goodin, “Epistemic Democracy: Generalizing the Condorcet
Jury Theorem,” Journal of Political Philosophy 9 (2001): 277–306.
This content downloaded from 147.251.160.163 on Wed, 04 Apr 2018 15:35:07 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
Saunders Democracy, Political Equality, and Majority Rule 167
there may also be conflicts where it makes no sense to suppose that
either outcome is “generally better”—that is, where we effectively have
a straightforward conflict of interests. In these cases, we need a rule
that aims at a fair division. Lottery voting will only produce outcomes
that someone has voted for; so, provided that all are reasonably competent
and well motivated, this will prevent disastrous outcomes (I say
more about this below). At the same time, lottery voting ensures that
competing groups have a fair opportunity to get their way when matters
come down to conflicts of interest or opinion.
May’s Theorem
May showed that simple majority rule is the only determinate decision
rule that satisfies four seemingly attractive conditions when choosing
between two options.59
The conditions are decisiveness: for any inputs,
there must be some choice, even if it is indifference; anonymity: all
voters are equal, so two switching their votes would not change the
outcome; neutrality: no option is favored, so had all voters switched
their votes the outcome would be reversed; and positive responsiveness:
if the group decision is either favorable to X or a tie, and any one
individual switches in a way favorable to X while no one else changes,
then the decision becomes strictly favorable to X. If we find each of
these four conditions compelling, then we should favor simple majority
rule, because no other alternative satisfies them all.
May’s theorem cannot, strictly, be construed as an argument for
majority rule, though it may function as a lemma within such an ar-
gument.60
May’s theorem itself is merely a formal definition, and it
would be a normative argument only if each condition was either
obviously attractive or argued for independently. The fact that we
sometimes employ decision rules other than simple majority rule indicates
that, sometimes at least, we find one or more of these conditions
unnecessary. May himself notes, for example, that we may prefer
to violate neutrality and entrench certain constitutional rights.61
Further, there are two crucial assumptions made by May’s theorem,
which limit its usefulness in an argument for majority rule. First,
it is constrained to binary choices. Since political decisions are rarely
simple yes/no questions, but often permit of a range of options including
compromises (e.g., on budget spending), it is not obvious
that May’s theorem is relevant. There are, of course, a number of
59. Kenneth O. May, “A Set of Independent Necessary and Sufficient Conditions for
Simple Majority Decision,” Econometrica 20 (1953): 680–84.
60. See Ackerman, Social Justice, 277–85; and Beitz, Political Equality, 58–67.
61. May, “Necessary and Sufficient Conditions for Simple Majority Decision,” 681 n.
7.
This content downloaded from 147.251.160.163 on Wed, 04 Apr 2018 15:35:07 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
168 Ethics October 2010
ways in which a larger number of options can be reduced to two
before a vote, for example through first-round votes or agenda rules,
but, since these can effectively determine the outcome, the meaningfulness
of the majority choice at the end stage can be questioned.62
Second, May’s argument is restricted, without explicit justification, to
determinate social decision rules, which excludes a procedure like
lottery voting a priori.
Since the formal definitions of May’s conditions assume a deterministic
procedure, they are not satisfied by lottery voting. Nonetheless,
if these conditions are found intuitively appealing, then it is most
likely in some more general way, since our intuitions do not well track
technical definitions. Lottery voting satisfies intuitive criteria of anonymity
and neutrality, since it does not favor any voter or option, is
decisive since an option is always picked, and is positively responsive
in a weaker sense, since extra votes in favor of one option always
increase its chances of winning. It seems that this captures the main
intuitive appeal of May’s conditions.
Compromise
Finally, it may be suggested that majority rule maximizes overall satisfaction,
not because more people get their way rather than fewer,
but because it represents an averaging of individual rankings. This
can be understood as an application of Downs’s median voter theo-
rem.63
Where two parties compete on a single dimension, the median
voter will be pivotal to forming a winning majority, so majority rule
favors “middle ground” solutions. While those on either extreme may
never get their way, they will be less dissatisfied with such an outcome
than if the opposing side had got things all their way.
This argument makes certain assumptions about the shape of
people’s preferences; specifically that they are single peaked, so individuals
always prefer outcomes closer to their ideal point to ones
further away. It is perfectly reasonable in some cases for people’s preferences
to be multipeaked though. For instance, if we were considering
spending on some project, one may think that either no spending
or a high amount is preferable to assigning a low budget that will
not get the job done properly. Under these circumstances, a middle
ground position may simply dissatisfy everyone.64
It may be that, as
62. William H. Riker, Liberalism against Populism: A Confrontation between the Theory of
Democracy and the Theory of Social Choice (San Francisco: W. H. Freeman, 1982), 60.
63. See Duncan Black, “On the Rationale of Group Decision-Making,” Journal of Political
Economy 56 (1948): 23–34; and Anthony Downs, An Economic Theory of Democracy (New
York: Harper & Row, 1957).
64. For similar cases, where simply “splitting the difference” is no good as a compromise,
see Goodin and Brennan, “Bargaining over Beliefs,” 264–66.
This content downloaded from 147.251.160.163 on Wed, 04 Apr 2018 15:35:07 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
Saunders Democracy, Political Equality, and Majority Rule 169
with dividing indivisible goods, each side would prefer some chance
of getting all of what they want, to a compromise that is little—if
any—better than none of what they want. It should be remembered
that lottery voting was justified as this sort of compromise—proportionate
chances rather than proportionate results. The result may well
be more unequal, because it is effectively winner takes all, but each
side may ex ante prefer it to any other compromise (or, at least, to
any compromise that could be produced in such a mechanistic fash-
ion).
V. OBJECTIONS TO LOTTERY VOTING
It seems that none of the common arguments for majority rule provide
a decisive general justification for preferring it to lottery voting.
However, it may be replied that this is because they have rarely had
such a target in mind and that there are other objections that rule
out lottery voting.65
These objections are strictly beside the point, insofar
as lottery voting is simply a heuristic to illustrate shortcomings
in arguments for majority rule. We have seen that some common arguments
for majority rule, such as appeals to Condorcet, are simply
not compelling, while others, such as respect—particularly in the
form employed by Vernon—actually seem to favor lottery voting. This
is my first, and main, contention: that we need to pay more attention
to potential alternatives to majority rule.
A qualified defense of lottery voting in particular is only my secondary
purpose. I do not need to show that it is the best democratic
procedure, only that it has some plausibility in certain circumstances,
to show that majority rule stands in need of (better) justification.
Circumstances conducive to lottery voting include cases where there
is a conflict of interests between rival groups, where no option is objectively
terrible, rather than purely “factual” disputes.66
No doubt it
is also more likely to be justified in cases where there are high degrees
of trust between decision makers and relatively small stakes, for example,
when a group of friends are choosing a restaurant for dinner,
but perhaps this is because these conditions are most favorable to
democracy.
More seriously, lottery voting is only motivated where a persistent
minority would otherwise be excluded altogether from decision making.
If the majority and minority form fluidly on each issue, then we
65. Jon Elster, Solomonic Judgements: Studies in the Limitations of Rationality (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1989), 86–91.
66. The line between ‘facts’ and ‘values’ is blurred. I think there are right and wrong
answers to questions about justice, morality, etc., but by ‘factual’ here I mean ‘nonevaluative’
questions, such as “how tall is Everest?” or “did X shoot Y?”
This content downloaded from 147.251.160.163 on Wed, 04 Apr 2018 15:35:07 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
170 Ethics October 2010
can assume that all individuals will have a greater chance of ending
up in the majority than not, so allowing the majority to rule would
be both fair and likely to maximize aggregate satisfaction. In such circumstances,
lottery voting would still be democratic and egalitarian—
that is, a way of reaching a group decision that respects each person’s
preferences equally—but it would not likely be the best democratic
procedure. Where majority rule does not suffer serious defects, it may
well be preferable, since holding a lottery would often mean fewer
people being satisfied. The contexts in which lottery voting may be
suitable are those where some persistent minority know in advance
that majority rule will see them lose. In those cases, I think they can
reasonably reject majority rule as rigged, rather than fair.
No doubt a number of objections to lottery voting will already
have occurred to the reader. I shall consider what I take to be the
four most common and serious objections to lottery voting, namely,
that it (i) can allow extreme or undesirable minorities to win; (ii) fails
to live up to its promise of equality, because outcomes may still be
unequal; (iii) neglects the importance of deliberation; and (iv) may
result in inconsistent sets of decisions. Note, however, that I cannot
provide a full treatment of the many ways in which lottery voting
could be institutionalized, which obviously are as variable as the implementation
of majority rule. In either case, we face a variety of
decisions about, for example, judicial review or agenda control. My
point is simply that the obvious problems with lottery voting can be
overcome.
Extreme Minorities
I have suggested that persistent minorities should have a chance of
getting their way. It may be replied that this is not so—that their being
a persistent minority is a reason for them not getting their way, since
their position is obviously unattractive to others and their arguments
unpersuasive.67
One might, for example, focus on extremist minorities,
such as those who join the Ku Klux Klan or British National Party.
Of course, not all minorities are racists or neofascists, but if we give
all minorities a chance then even these groups may sometimes win,
which might be disastrous. While majority rule may exclude many
67. Rehfeld, The Concept of Constituency, 232, argues that the permanence of a minority
suggests that they should not get their way, citing the example of the Ku Klux Klan. The
reason the KKK’s policies should not be enacted, however, is because they are unjust, not
because they are a minority—we would not want them enacted even if the KKK won a
majority. Not all minorities advocate objectionable policies, however. Moreover, the persistence
of a minority may be due to the difficulty that some, such as cultural groups, have
in making their case persuasive to mainstream society. See Vernon, Political Morality, 148–
67.
This content downloaded from 147.251.160.163 on Wed, 04 Apr 2018 15:35:07 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
Saunders Democracy, Political Equality, and Majority Rule 171
reasonable small groups at least it also has the virtue of excluding
extremist fanatics and permitting only what a large number find reasonable.
Thus, while it may not deliver ideal outcomes, we may think
that it has the virtue of avoiding the worst ones.68
The defender of lottery voting might reply that it would be democratic
to give even these minorities a chance of having their policies
enacted, if people vote for them. Democracy is not, after all, all good
things but simply a system of popular rule and, if the people vote for
injustices, then it is unsurprising that democratic outcomes may prove
to be unjust. This could be reason to resist democracy tout court, but
it is not an objection to the democratic status of lottery voting. After
all, one need not think that all decisions are appropriately made
democratically—some, for instance, those where important rights are
at stake, might be better made either by “experts” or small deliberative
bodies. Where these groups are likely to result in substantively
better decisions being made then we may prefer such nondemocratic
procedures. Nonetheless, the advocate of lottery voting is not committed
to accepting the victory of extremist minorities.
First, it may be replied that what is wrong with such groups winning
is not that they are minorities but that their policies are unjust.
If we subscribe to the idea of liberal rights as “trumps,” then we would
not think that these policies ought to be implemented even if they
won a majority. The usual solution is to give courts the power to strike
down legislation that violates rights, even when it is in accordance
with the preferences of the majority, and the same option is open to
the advocate of lottery voting. Judicial review (where it works as intended)
effectively takes unjust options off the political menu, which
reduces the risks of giving all remaining alternatives a chance. Thus,
democratic values may be traded off against the value of substantively
just outcomes. Once the possibility of rights violations is removed, it
is less clear that there is anything wrong in these groups having their
preferences satisfied.
Second, it should be noted that although the logic of proportionality
requires that all groups get the chance that they are entitled
to, we might in practice choose to limit this proportionality by imposing
some minimum threshold of votes before a group (or the option
they support) receives any chance. This is in keeping with the
practice of many countries practicing “proportional representation,”
where minimum thresholds (usually around 5–10 percent) are often
required before a party gets any representation. A similar restriction
can be applied in the cases of decision making that I am concerned
with. We might insist that a given option needs the support of at least
68. Estlund, Democratic Authority, 160–67.
This content downloaded from 147.251.160.163 on Wed, 04 Apr 2018 15:35:07 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
172 Ethics October 2010
10 percent of voters to be given any chance of victory, to rule out
options favored only by a few crackpots, but give all options that satisfy
this threshold a chance of victory proportionate to their level of support
among voters. This excludes options favored by only a very small
minority of the voters, which may again compromise the democratic
or egalitarian nature of the system, but does so in order to prevent
the risk of substantively bad outcomes.
Third, we might suggest a bit more faith in the people. It is true
that we do sometimes observe people voting for undesirable extremists,
but it should not be forgotten that voting behavior is to a considerable
extent endogenous to the political system. Majoritarian systems,
in both elections and referenda, allow for large numbers of
protest votes, because one can be reasonably sure that an extremist
party or option is unlikely to win. There is considerable evidence,
both scientific and anecdotal, that much of the extremist voting we
observe in such systems is simply protest voting.69
It is hard to predict
the consequences on voting behavior of switching to a more proportional
voting rule, such as lottery voting. Certainly it is likely to favor
many existing minority options, once votes cast for them are seen as
having a real chance of winning, rather than being “wasted.” On the
other hand, it may be that extremist parties actually receive less support
as people cast their votes more responsibly once they really mean
something.70
This objection can, however, be developed by pointing out that
lottery voting creates incentives for extremism rather than compro-
mise.71
Majority rule forces parties to make wider appeals and to seek
mutually agreeable compromises. While lottery voting rewards those
that are able to persuade more people to their cause, it does not
likewise encourage moderation—there is no reason to accept half the
cake, if one has a chance of getting all of the cake. This means that
there may be a tendency for groups to make unreasonable demands,
69. For examples of protest voting, see Nonna Mayer and Pascal Perrineau, “Why Do
They Vote for Le Pen?” European Journal of Political Research 22 (1992): 123–41. A Palestinian
voter is quoted as saying that he only voted Hamas to shock the Fatah Party and would
not have done so had he expected that they might win, in Harry de Quetteville, “The
Regretful Fatah Voters Who Took Poll ‘Game’ Too Far,” Daily Telegraph (January 27, 2006),
5. Orit Kedar, “When Moderate Voters Prefer Extreme Parties: Policy Balancing in Parliamentary
Elections,” American Political Science Review 99 (2005): 185–99, notes that voters
exaggerate the intensity of their preferences to balance out the centralizing effect of
voting systems. That the inconsequentiality of an individual vote frees voters to vote on
noninstrumental (e.g., ethical) grounds is argued by Geoffrey Brennan and Loren Lomasky,
Democracy and Decision: The Pure Theory of Electoral Preference (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1993).
70. Mill, “Considerations,” chap. 10, 353–55.
71. I owe this objection to Clare Chambers.
This content downloaded from 147.251.160.163 on Wed, 04 Apr 2018 15:35:07 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
Saunders Democracy, Political Equality, and Majority Rule 173
knowing that they may have the luck to get all that they want. I have
already pointed out that groups may sometimes be reasonable in preferring
a chance of getting all their way to a compromise that does
not satisfy anyone. Nonetheless, it would be a serious problem if lottery
voting encouraged and rewarded groups advancing unreasonable
claims.
Perhaps the fact that anyone could lose will encourage all to
think more seriously about the position of losers. Moreover, we might
make institutions less susceptible to abuse, for example, by requiring
public voting, so that those who press unreasonable claims will have
to do so openly and can be held to account informally.72
If we adopt
public voting, then it seems that there is more prospect for groups to
reach a compromise through discussion or logrolling, because they
can be assured that others will offer their promised support. Ultimately,
since no institution is immune to abuse, we may have to trust
to the reasonableness of the people. Well-functioning democracy requires
high levels of interpersonal trust and self-restraint. Most people
do seem to consider the general good or justice, rather than merely
their own private interests, when voting. Since lottery voting encourages
personal responsibility among voters, we may hope that most will
refrain from advancing extreme positions, while those we deem unjust
may be checked by judicial review.
Unequal Outcomes
A second objection is that lottery voting will not actually result in
equality. There are two ways that this can be taken, but both rest on
misconceptions about the purpose of lottery voting. First, it has already
been pointed out that the aim is not equal satisfaction or equal
chances for everyone. It will still be the case that members of a minority
are less likely to get their way, but this is a consequence of
treating each person equally: more do count for more, in that they
have a greater chance of winning, but (unlike majority rule) the numbers
are not fully determinative, so the minority also get their chance.
The minority need not be resigned to their position, since a further
virtue of the system is that they can improve their odds by winning
more voters over to their cause, thereby improving their chances of
victory. I shall say more about deliberation shortly, but there is a second
interpretation of the unequal outcome objection.
It may be accepted that treating people equally requires proportionality,
rather than giving the majority all their own way, but still
72. Public voting was also advocated by Mill, “Considerations,” chap. 10. See Annabelle
Lever, “Mill and the Secret Ballot: Beyond Coercion and Corruption,” Utilitas 19 (2007):
354–78.
This content downloaded from 147.251.160.163 on Wed, 04 Apr 2018 15:35:07 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
174 Ethics October 2010
objected that lottery voting does not guarantee proportional outcomes.
This is not simply a repeated call for results proportionate to
numbers, rather than chances proportionate to numbers; for the objector
may also accept the impossibility of reaching a satisfactory compromise
on each and every individual decision. It may be accepted
that we need to look for compromise over a series of decisions, but
objected that lottery voting does not ensure that each group will get
its way a specified proportion of the time—it may be, for example,
that an unlucky minority group still loses every time. If we wanted to
ensure that all groups sometimes got their way, then a better procedure
might involve some determinate form of rotation or turn taking
that ensures all groups are actually satisfied on some occasions, rather
than merely having a chance of satisfaction on all occasions that may
never in fact come up.
I think any such proposal would be impractical, however, for it
is unclear how it would work if the groups were not fixed and it would
doubtless increase efforts to manipulate the agenda, as each group
tried to ensure that it was “their turn” when an important decision
came up. The rationale for lottery voting is not to ensure that each
group gets its preferred outcome a specified portion of the time,
though this would probably be a welcome consequence if it happened.
Groups give up their claim to proportionate outcomes in favor
of proportionate chances and, in doing so, accept that—because
chance is inherently uncertain—they may win or lose more than their
“fair share.” Fairness, however, is respected in the procedure itself,
rather than outcomes. Even if a minority have, as it happens, lost
every time up until now, where lottery voting differs from majority
rule is that they can go in to the next vote with a real chance of
winning, rather than knowing in advance that they will lose.
Deliberation
The third serious objection to lottery voting is that it neglects, or even
undermines, the important role of deliberation and reason giving in
democracy. In fact, this is no more true than to say that majority rule
necessarily does so. It is true that groups may refuse to enter into
deliberation and simply trust to their chance, just as majority groups
can refuse to listen to minorities and have their way by force of numbers
in majoritarian systems. As already observed though, institutions
can be designed to allow, and even encourage, deliberation before
matters come to the vote. Since even the most hardened deliberative
democrat usually recognizes the practical impossibility of reaching
complete consensus through deliberation, lottery voting simply replaces
majority rule as a last resort once discussion is over, either
because there is no more to be said or no more time to say it. Indeed,
This content downloaded from 147.251.160.163 on Wed, 04 Apr 2018 15:35:07 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
Saunders Democracy, Political Equality, and Majority Rule 175
lottery voting may do more to encourage attempts at persuasion, because
all groups have incentives to try to persuade as many others as
they can to their cause, since this will increase their chances of winning,
whether or not they have any hope of persuading a majority.
It may be objected that this is not sufficiently responsive to the
outcomes of reason giving. Suppose, for example, that opinion was
initially evenly divided between two options but, after deliberation, a
majority had formed, so the balance of opinions stood at 75/25. This
is a fairly dramatic shift and arguably indicates that the balance of
reasons favors the former alternative.73
It is true that lottery voting
does not ensure that the former option will win the election, even
though it could be said to have won the argument. There are, however,
a number of points to be made here.
One might question the assumption that the argument for the
former option is obviously stronger. It is true that opinion has swayed
that way, but it was not a decisive victory because it did not win everyone
over. Had deliberation resulted in unanimity, then lottery voting
would trivially respect this (since whichever vote was chosen would
be for the unanimously preferred option). As it is, however, 25 percent
remain unpersuaded—so, if the reasons were not convincing to
them, it is not obvious that they should be taken as decisive. We must
remember that the majority may not necessarily have converged upon
a uniquely correct outcome. The reason for persistent disagreement
may be that there is a conflict of interests, where the minority are
legitimate in preferring some other option.
Moreover, the “responsiveness to reasons” argument does not
generally favor majority rule. This is evident if we imagine another
example, where opinion was initially split 90/10 but, after deliberation,
this became 60/40. Here we might think that the stronger arguments
actually favor the minority, for they had clearly been more
persuasive in the debate; but majority rule would not reflect this and
would still have the former side win. Neither lottery voting nor majority
rule guarantees that the side with the better arguments will get
its way, but lottery voting at least ensures that the more people you
persuade the greater your chances of victory. This seems sufficiently
responsive to the results of deliberation.
Inconsistency
Even if lottery voting is no worse than majority rule in deciding particular
issues, one may worry that the overall package of decisions that
results will be worse, since different factions may get their way each
time and hence the result may be an inconsistent patchwork with no
73. I owe this objection to David Miller.
This content downloaded from 147.251.160.163 on Wed, 04 Apr 2018 15:35:07 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
176 Ethics October 2010
coherent rationale.74
In other words, the set of decisions will lack what
Dworkin calls integrity.75
It should be noted, however, that majority
rule does not guarantee consistency either. Suppose we must decide
whether to (i) lower taxes, (ii) increase education spending, and (iii)
increase defense spending. Assume that we can do any two (we could
lower taxes and increase defense spending by cutting the education
budget), but not all three. Nonetheless, it may be that different majorities
form in favor of all three options.76
The problem here seems
to be precisely that there is no fixed majority but, rather, a series of
fluid coalitions—exactly the situation that many regard as most hospitable
to majority rule. Perhaps the lesson is that we face an inevitable
trade-off between the fairness of ensuring that all get some satisfaction
and the consistency provided by having one group (or one
individual) decide everything.
It would indeed be a problem if any decision procedure was to
yield flatly contradictory decisions, such that we should both raise and
lower taxes. We need not, however, resign ourselves to such inconsistencies.
Much depends on how the overall range of decisions is broken
down into discrete “units” for the vote. It may be that there are
some cases where to do X would be pointless unless we also do Y, and
vice versa. In these cases, it seems sensible to have one vote on
whether or not to do both X and Y together, rather than separate
votes on each. There may, however, be other cases where policy Z
seems a “natural complement” to X, but it may be worthwhile doing
either thing separately. In these cases, we could take the votes separately,
but it would be sensible to make the outcome of the first public
before votes were cast on the second. That way, those who wanted to
do Z if and only if X would know whether X and be able to vote
accordingly. If it happened that Z was chosen, despite not-X, it would
only be because there were some people who thought Z the best thing
to do, even though it has been decided that X will not be done.
Before lottery voting could be implemented, much more thought
would need to be given to agenda-setting mechanisms. We may, for
example, need ways to stop defeated groups bringing the same policy
immediately back to the table, hoping to get lucky next time. One
74. I thank an anonymous referee for prompting me to discuss these concerns here.
75. Ronald Dworkin, Law’s Empire (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1986),
176–224. It should be noted, however, that integrity matters only for matters of ‘principle’,
not ‘policy’. Moreover, judges are tasked with interpreting the law as if it had a single
author/rationale, though it does not, which is consistent with lottery voting as well as
changeable majorities.
76. This structure parallels that described in Christian List, “The Discursive Dilemma
and Public Reason,” Ethics 116 (2006): 362–402, but concerns distinct, though interdependent,
decisions.
This content downloaded from 147.251.160.163 on Wed, 04 Apr 2018 15:35:07 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
Saunders Democracy, Political Equality, and Majority Rule 177
solution might be for all policies to enjoy protected status for a period
of time that could be set for each decision by a separate but simultaneous
vote. This would force all involved to converge on a reasonable
protection period, since they would have to nominate a time
balancing the risk of being stuck under a policy that they dislike and
the protection they would want if they were to win the substantive
vote.
I cannot explore all possible institutional permutations, which
are as varied for lottery voting as for majority rule. There is no need,
however, to fear that lottery voting will necessarily result in contradictory
policies and, if there is a loss of coherence, it is simply a natural
result of distributing decision-making power fairly to all groups. Inconsistency
is not always an issue, though, since some cases may necessarily
be one-off decisions. Moreover, we must remember that similar
problems also plague majority rule, particularly in cases of “cyclical”
majorities.
VI. CONCLUSION
The choice of the appropriate decision-making rule seems to depend
upon the context and what is to be decided. There can be no general
choice between majority rule and lottery voting, but the latter may be
preferable in certain circumstances, for example, where it gives a permanent
minority hope of having their preferences satisfied sometimes.
Exactly when it would be preferable is a matter for further
investigation, but, if it is a possible democratic procedure that cannot
be ruled out a priori, it shows that more care needs to be taken to
justify majority rule in particular, rather than only the more general
principles of democracy or political equality.
This content downloaded from 147.251.160.163 on Wed, 04 Apr 2018 15:35:07 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms